Hornets race to title

Gowens paces Flour Bluff to 31-4A crown

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times
HM King High Schoolís Travis King (left) (cq.) and Alice High Schoolís Jacob De La Cruz (cq.) take off after receiving the baton from teammates in the 400-meter boyís varsity relay of the District 31-4A track meet at Calallen High School on Wednesday. Alice finished third and HM King finished fifth.

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times
Tuloso-Midway High School's Analicia Banales (cq.) finishes the 800-meter girl's varsity dash of the District 31-4A track meet at Calallen High School on Wednesday with a time of 2:30:33.

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times
Alice High Schoolís Andrew Munoz led the pack starting the second half of the 800-meter boyís varsity race of the District 31-4A track meet at Calallen High School on Wednesday. Munoz finished second with a time of 2:04:21.

Flour Bluff boys track and field coach Bobby Jones isn't sure when the Hornets last won a district championship.

That doesn't matter now.

Flour Bluff scored 195 points to claim the 31-4A team title Wednesday night at Calallen's Wildcat Stadium. Junior Michael Gowens led the effort by winning four gold medals in the 100 meters, 200, long jump and triple jump.

The Calallen girls scored 182 points to win the girls title. Tuloso-Midway finished second with 150 points, followed by Flour Bluff with 128.

Flour Bluff's Ashley Darley matched Gowens with four gold medals by winning 100, 200, 400 and long jump despite missing four meets after being diagnosed with a heart murmur.

"It felt good to get back out there," said Darley, who returned to competition three weeks ago. "I just tried to work as hard as I could."

Gowens kicked off Flour Bluff's run to the boys championship by winning the long jump and triple jump on Tuesday. He went 21 feet, 7.5 inches to take the long jump, while Calallen's Hunter Whetsel finished second with an effort of 20-8.

Having already won the triple jump, Gowens went ahead and took his final attempt. He went on to leap 45-0, a foot better than his previous try and the second best in South Texas this season.

On Wednesday, Gowens ran 10.86 seconds to win the 100 and 23.14 to win the 200. He could only think about one thing as he sped around the track.

"To finish at the top," Gowens said. "All the hard work paid off."

One thing Jones does know is the sacrifices the staff and athletes made along the way.

"The assistant coaches work their tails off getting the kids to believe we could reach our goals," Jones said. "We struggled for a while, but they had the kids believing we could win the district championship. This was a team effort. Every point was so valuable."